Seven Years in Seven Voices
by Little Tanuki
Summary: A challenge in writing Point Of View. Seven very short pieces with no particular narrative. Each represents a year on the station.
1. Year One ORB

**Year One**

**Orb**

* * *

This  
is the place  
to which  
it comes.

These  
are the dreams  
of the beings  
within.

They open the box to peer inside. They see their dreams. It sees their souls. They find a world with no before. No after. No progression  
of  
the days.

All that is, is _now_.

The one who comes with open heart will see the path of those they know. Of love, and hate – all are the same.

_Now_.

A path of trust, a path of fear – of danger, betrayal, forgiveness, friendship. _Now_.

Now are the dreams of small beings set down.  
Here is the change about to begin.


	2. Year Two HOLOSUITE

**Year Two**

**Holosuite**

* * *

First there is an outdoor game. A field of sunlit green stretching far into the distance. Then an adventure, with constructed faces and no more than the illusion of danger. Third is a battle – cave walls built inward from the edges. The combatants sweat and growl, and throw verbal taunts as they dance around each other in a smoothly dangerous whirl.

The walls project inwards, images extending to the supposed distance. Phantom characters rise, and die in a moment, sent back to the ether from which they had come. The day ends. And for the first time since morning, the circuits are no longer active.


	3. Year Three RUNABOUT

**Year Three**

**Runabout**

* * *

Heading: Three four two. Speed: Half impulse. Was not expecting to be lost so soon.

Slow to one third. Turn to port. Sensors warn of a plasma leak, a hostile ship directly ahead. But there's a tear in the fabric. Injured metal. Internal sensors detect weapons fire, and smoke spews into the cockpit from compromised panels. Shields are down, their armour lost, and with a hole pierced in the outer hull.

The target of their pursuit is quickly lost to the increasing distance. A request comes through the interface beneath the console screen. Scan the surrounding area for a habitable surface. Confirm co-ordinates. Consult the database stored deep within its circuits.

The unknown world is below them now. Manual controls active. Outside temperature rising. A jolt, as the first atmospheric barrier collides with the hull. Now at two thousand feet… Fifteen hundred… one thousand…

Isolated on the soft, wet ground, surrounded by only insects and damp moss, the pilot departs in a haze of light. Swamp life creeps inside the hull. Seeds find their way into decaying cracks. Vines and fungi climb the metal. The computer senses cold, organic moisture, and blinks into eternity.


	4. Year Four KUKALAKA

**Year Four**

**Kukalaka**

* * *

He remembers the feel of a the needle and thread, sliding through the fading cloth beneath his fur. Every patchwork scar upon his surface has come to him as a sign of love. The first were from a tiny boy just barely half the size of the man that Julian has now become.

Others said that it would not be the same with Julian fully grown. That he would be embarrassed by the sight of his oldest friend. That he would hide him away like a monster in his closet, and abandon him to the ravages of years. There are days when Julian has to leave him behind, and he waits on the shelf, and worries. Sometimes they are apart for many days. The stars pass by the window, and everything is quiet and still.

Sometimes he even imagines that this will be forever. But then the door opens, and there is movement inside. Julian smiles, and greets him with a cheerful hello. And Kukalaka remembers what it is to be happy.


	5. Year Five KIRAYOSHI

**Year Five**

**Kirayoshi**

* * *

Soft, wet walls push in from every side. These are all that the lifeform has ever known. He curls himself inward – a seed yet to germinate; a frond, not yet unfurled. His eyes open, unnoticed by any other living being. But there is nothing to see in his isolated world. Sounds reach him from the distance – a soft, mumbled, semi-even rhythm that struggles through the body of his host. And, many times louder, is the constant beat of a heart far above him. There has never been a time without it.

The lifeform squirms once, settles into the comforting darkness, and all is peaceful again.


	6. Year Six CHESTER

**Year Six**

**Chester**

* * *

The smells are different here. His old territory smelt so much unlike this place – so comfortingly like himself, like the paths he had walked from his food to his chair. In this place, the scents around him speak of unfamiliar beings, and adventures not his own.

The stranger enters. The new creature with his unknown voice. This one, smelling of grease and strange places, drops heavily onto the sofa and exhales loudly as it lands.

He tiptoes up to the new creature. Rubs his scent onto the corner of the seat. The old place was a dustier one than this, with smoke, and age, and the soft whirr of a fan above. This is broad, uncluttered, and still. He will make these corners his own.

The stranger speaks to him, and he jumps without a sound onto the chair.


	7. Year Seven BASEBALL

**Year Seven**

**Baseball**

* * *

It rises from the fingers of the captain's hand, pauses for a moment as the forces of gravity and momentum compete, and finally down - to land in the same confident grip.

Again, a spinning throw. It ascends through the air like the eternal dance of a world, rotating. Spins in isolation. Spins through the years.

The window passes by. Every view is different, and the hand that has thrown it is steady and certain. Sure of its path, the guiding motion, and the place where each arc will lead it to fall.

Every rotation passes, like the spinning of years. Always different; always clear.


End file.
